QUALIFIED specialised secretaries are in good demand but, unfortunately, salaries are not so good. For instance, the statutory minimum rates of pay for secretary working in the legal profession start at £124 a week. This works out at less than £7,000 a year.

However, many secretaries earn more than this minimum rate. Mary Lonergan, principal of Rathmines Senior College, Dublin, which offers a wide range of secretarial courses, says that typical annual starting salaries would be between £7,000 and £10,000. She had just been notified of two job offers by a large insurance company which have starting salaries of £9,000. The college is not prepared to put forward the names of companies if they are offering £6,000 or less. Very often employers will come back with better offers, she says.

Rathmines Senior College offers secretarial studies combined with six specialisms European executive assistant, medical/health service, legal studies, receptionist, information technology, and language and business administration. "The reason we went away from the generic course to the more specialised options is because employers are now looking for the basic skills plus something extra," explains Lonergan.

Kathleen Brennan, of Drogheda College of Further Education, Co Louth, agrees. Students must have a specialisation to compete, she says. The proof of her words lies in last year's 100 per cent job placement rate for the college's three courses in office administration which is combined with reception skills information technology and a business language or business and information systems. Students study for NCVA level 2 awards and Pittman exams.

Students in most specialised secretarial courses take a number of core subjects. For instance, in Rathmines all students take word processing, typewriting, audio typing, accounts, communications, a language and office procedures. The specialised modules include skills such as familiarisation with the GP clinic software for those taking the medical/ health care option.

As to jobs, Lonergan says that this year is the best ever and that they are having difficulty trying to keep students in college until their exams. For those interested in applying to the various courses, there are interviews in May for prospective students and places will be allocated pending five passes in the Leaving Cert. "There is no reason why students can't be walking around with a place in their pockets before they sit the Leaving Cert", she says.

Students hoping for receptionist type jobs need good communication skills. Kay Bambury, course co-ordinator for the receptionist/tourism studies course in Cork College of Commerce, says that there is good demand for graduates of this one year course and they usually find work in banks, as junior secretaries, clerks, and receptionists.

Cork College of Commerce also offers a diploma in tourism and travel, bilingual secretarial and linguistic secretarial courses as well as telemarketing. The bilingual secretarial course also includes some telemarketing.

Last December the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Richard Bruton, said that the tele services area has the potential to achieve over 5,000 new jobs by the end of the decade.